Elections

Gordon Brown is poised to scrap a series of unpopular tax rises as part of sweeping changes to stave off a dangerous revolt over the rising cost of living which last week dealt Labour its worst electoral hammering in 40 years. Today the Prime Minister will respond to a growing suburban uprising by signalling moves to help motorists and other consumers. Last night Downing Street sources hinted the 2 per cent rise in fuel duty due in the autumn may not go ahead, in a concession to tight household budgets.
–Gaby Hinsliff and Jo Revill, The Observer, 4 May 2008

Internal polling in London found Ken Livingstone’s green policies, such as new charges for gas-guzzling cars, alienated older voters, while the environment was at best a low priority for others, suggesting that, as families’ budgets shrink, so does their willingness to pay to save the planet. ‘My colleagues will say Labour has got to be brave on green issues, but the public are really feeling the pinch,’ said one senior minister.
–Gaby Hinsliff and Jo Revill, The Observer, 4 May 2008

U.K. voters resoundingly rejected the Labour Party in local elections last week. It was no capricious shift, but a citizen revolt against trendy carbon and nanny-state taxes that empower only bad government. For Labour, it was the worst election in 40 years. Every tax and intrusion imposed by Labour in recent years was justified as being for voters’ “own good.” Ending global warming, reducing carbon footprints, lowering carbon emissions and raising public funding of renewable energy – all were excuses used to hit the voters’ pocketbook with more taxes. Yet none of these taxes improved the quality of life.
–Investor’s Business Daily, 2 May 2008

Oh dear! The inevitable is happening. The ‘global warming’ trope is unravelling on a daily basis – scientifically, economically, and politically. The wheels are coming off the hysterical bandwagon, and it is not going to be a salutary sight watching the politicians and the media junkies jumping cart and trying to throw mud in everyone’s eyes.
–Philip Stott, 3 May 2008

Global warming is a new religion and blasphemy against that religion is not a laughing matter. The high tide of unthinking adherence to this new religion has been reached and I think it may well be in the coming years the tide will gradually recede but it will be a very glacial progress.
–Nigel Lawson, The Guardian, 3 May 2008

But, of course, people aren’t interested in these kinds of facts. They want the religion. They want the sweet moralistic feeling of telling someone to stop doing something. They want to be able to rage about Chelsea Tractors and Tony Blair’s flights, and they want to give vent to their feelings of disgust at the whole triumph of Western consumerist capitalism.
–Boris Johnson, The Daily Telegraph, 11 January 2007

For the first time in years, voters seem skeptical that solar, wind, ocean waves and currents, biofuels and other so-called renewable sources of energy can replace gasoline, petroleum-based diesel, home heating oil, natural gas, and propane to any significant degree in the foreseeable future. Among ordinary middle class, working class and poor voters, global warming appears to be a non-issue. More and more hard-pressed people are more afraid of pauperization than the manmade greenhouse gases that supposedly cause climate change.
–China Confidential, 3 May 2008

Failed asylum seekers are sneaking out of Britain – because they are fed up with the poor healthcare and bad weather. Scores have been caught trying to break past border controls in recent weeks, according to immigration staff. Les Williams, a chief immigration officer for the UK Border Agency, said: “We cannot explain exactly why they are trying to go, but when some of these people were questioned they said they wanted to go to a warmer country as they are fed up with the English weather.”
–The Daily Mail, 3 May 2008

Those who have knowledge, don’t predict. Those who predict, don’t have knowledge.
–Lao Tzu, 6th Century BC Chinese Poet

CCNet 71/2008 – 4 May 2008 — Audiatur et altera pars

The UK Conservative Party’s Boris Johnson, climate realist and member of Benny Peiser’s scholarly electronic network CCNet, has been elected Mayor of London, defeating ‘Red Ken’ Livingstone.

There are a hundred reasons why Boris Johnson should not be Mayor of London. But his dinosaur views on the environment alone are enough to show what a disaster he would be for our city. The man who backed Bush against the Kyoto treaty and who doesn’t believe there’s a risk from passive smoking cannot be trusted with our future – or even, really, with his own. He’s a 19th century man in a 21st century city
–Sian Berry, Green Party, 25 April 2008

Under a climate change denier like Boris Johnson, we would have to fear for our futures, and for the jobs of all the hundreds who work for us. We would also have to fear for the physical security of the city itself, under the assault of unmitigated global warming, were others to follow Johnson’s ‘lead’ on climate change.
–Jeremy Leggett, SolarCentury, 25 April 2008

The prospect of Boris as Mayor of London is just so scary. The prospect of Boris taking over London’s Climate Change Action Plan is even scarier. He may have learnt not to reveal his full contrarian bigotry on climate change, but he really doesn’t get it, and would rapidly scale back or completely get rid off the ambitious targets in the Action Plan. And that would be a massive set back. I just hope all the environmental NGOs can rally the troops in London in a pro-Ken campaign, even if they can’t come out and explicitly endorse him.
–Jonathon Porritt, Sustainable Development Commission, March 2008

Boris Johnson claimed a remarkable victory in the London mayoral contest on Friday night to cap a disastrous series of results for Gordon Brown in his first electoral test as Prime Minister. Mr Johnson’s landmark victory, a result that would have been almost unthinkable six months ago, was the most symbolic blow to Mr Brown’s authority on a day that left the Prime Minister facing the gravest crisis of his leadership.
–Andrew Porter and Robert Winnett, The Daily Telegraph, 3 May 2008

[The defeated] Mr Livingstone made clear he views 1 May as a referendum on his policies to tackle climate change and protect the health of Londoners. Aides claimed it would be the first election in British history to be decided largely on environmental issues.
–The London Evening Standard, 25 March 2008

Londoners now face a stark choice. Boris Johnson is an environmental vandal, whose main contribution to environmental policy was as a cheerleader for George W Bush’s disastrous decision to oppose the Kyoto climate treaty. The election is neck and neck and everyone who cares about the environment needs to vote with the first and second preferences for myself and Sian Berry if we are to stop Boris Johnson wrecking London’s environment.
–Ken Livingstone, 25 April 2008

The hypocrisy of the Europeans over Kyoto is staggering. They attack America in hysterical terms, and yet the 15 EU countries have never come close to meeting their own eight per cent target for cuts in carbon dioxide emissions. They have not even agreed which countries should cut the most. If America were to meet its Kyoto targets now, it would require a cut of 30 per cent in emissions, and how, exactly, is that supposed to work in the current economic downturn? It would exacerbate the recession, and when Bush says no, he is doing what is right not just for America but for the world
–Boris Johnson, The Daily Telegraph, April 2001

Politics and environment, within the recent Cairns Regional Council ‘amalgamation’ election, reveal some interesting dynamics.

In the former North Queensland Shire of Douglas, amalgamation was overwhelmingly unpopular. Sentiment variously denounced the state government dictate as a death-knell for both the World Heritage rainforests of the Daintree and also the prestigious charm of Port Douglas.

In what appeared to be an allaying of concerns (assented to a mere nine days before the election) the Queensland Government enacted the Iconic Places of Queensland Act (IPQA), which identified the local government area of Douglas Shire as ‘Iconic’. In effect, IPQA rendered a Clayton’s amalgamation over the former Douglas Shire.

Voters in the region’s newest northern division, comprising the former Douglas Shire, effectively rewarded the Queensland Government for neutralising amalgamation via IPQA, by ousting the super council’s incumbent conservative leader and giving contender, Ms Val Schier, the majority of support.

Ms. Schier’s ‘grassroots’ campaign had relied largely on doorknocks and community events, reiterating the sentiment of IPQA, prioritising protection of the region’s heritage, tightening planning guidelines to restrict development and creating greater transparency.

Former Mayor of the Cairns City Council, Kevin Byrne, said he was effectively destroyed at the polling booths by residents in the northern beaches suburbs and the former Douglas shire who believed he had a ‘bulldozer waiting at the gates’.

By contrast, Daintree Cape Tribulation electors voted more strongly for the incumbent Mayor and perhaps more significantly, against contender, Val Shier, than any other community throughout the entire amalgamated Cairns Region. It could be argued that no other Queensland community had suffered more under the politics of extreme environmentalism and that amalgamation had offered hope for a reprieve. However, Iconic legislation was foisted particularly onto the rainforest communities and in demographic familiarity, the majority of non-rainforest-based electors within the division voted, yet again, to save the Daintree.